Mobilization in Russia for Aug. 3-5, 2025 CIT Volunteer Summary
Authorities and Legislation
Despite the 2023 Law on Digital Draft Notices allowing remote de-registration, Russian courts are still mandating that individuals appear in person to be removed from military rolls. Draft offices have widely refused remote de-registration requests, citing that the Unified Military Register and its associated systems are not yet operational. Cassation courts in Moscow, Khabarovsk, and other regions upheld this stance, ruling that the absence of the digital register precludes de-registration via power of attorney or through the Gosuslugi public services portal. The courts have consistently affirmed that individuals can only be removed from the military rolls by appearing in person.
Army Recruitment
A 39-year-old police major from Alapayevsk in the Sverdlovsk region, accused of sexual relations with a minor, has enlisted to evade punishment. The policeman met a 15-year-old schoolgirl while illegally moonlighting as a taxi driver. He began a relationship with her, promising that he would leave his wife. After the girl became pregnant, her mother reported the officer to law enforcement agencies, but they were initially reluctant to open an investigation. Following a public outcry, however, authorities eventually charged the officer and suspended him from duty. Andrey Alshevskikh, a member of the State Duma [lower house of Russia’s Federal Assembly], publicized the case. The lawmaker asserts that investigators deliberately classified the charges with excessive leniency to enable the officer to avoid prosecution by joining the war effort.
The village of Sedanka in Kamchatka will be awarded the title of "Village of Military Valor" "for its merits in the special operation," announced regional governor Vladimir Solodov. According to him, 39 men from the village, more than half of all local adult males, went to the frontline. Five of them were killed, and another is missing in action. The village has 457 people registered as residents, but only 224 actually live there. Of those, 67 are men over the age of 18. The governor stated that Sedanka will become the first village in Russia to receive this title for its residents’ participation in the "special military operation."
Mobilized Soldiers, Contract Soldiers and Conscripts
Two wounded Russian soldiers who were exchanged in June were captured again in July, according to the Ukrainian Hochu Zhit [I Want to Live] project. According to their information, Saktaagai Shagaa Mikhailovich, a native of Tuva [Russia’s constituent republic], signed a contract with the Ministry of Defense on Dec. 10, 2024, and was assigned to the 83rd Motorized Rifle Regiment. Just a month later, in January, he was wounded during an assault on the town of Vovchansk and surrendered. On June 20, Saktaagai returned to Russia as part of a prisoner exchange. After being interrogated by the Federal Security Service (FSB), he was immediately sent back to the frontline near Vovchansk, and on July 19, he surrendered again. Dmitry Ivanov, a 21-year-old native of Komi [Russia's constituent republic], signed a contract with the 82nd Motorized Rifle Regiment on Sept. 11, 2024. On Oct. 7, after sustaining injuries to his legs and arms, Dmitry was captured, and on June 9, 2025, he was exchanged. On July 19, he was captured again near Vovchansk.
At least 14 severely wounded soldiers from the Chelyabinsk region who were preparing to be discharged from the army due to their injuries were sent into an assault operation near the village of Novoselivka. Relatives of four of the soldiers told the Astra Telegram channel about this. On Aug. 2, the men, who were in a reserve battalion awaiting a medical evaluation board, were suddenly "transferred" to an assault unit, given body armor and helmets, and taken to forward positions. The last time they were in contact was on Aug. 3. At the military unit to which one of the soldiers had been assigned, his wife was told that he was no longer listed there.
Junior Lieutenant Kamil Zainulin was released after his situation was reported by Astra. Previously, Zainulin was deceived by his commanders into attending an "award ceremony" in Kursk, but was instead taken to an illegal basement prison for "refuseniks" in the Russian-occupied part of the Luhansk region of Ukraine and had been prepared for deployment to an assault mission. On June 22, Zainulin and Sergeant Sergey Zozulenko were evacuated from the frontline to the village of Rozsypne in the Luhansk region. Zainulin was there for nearly a month, and the fate of Zozulenko remains unknown. According to Zainulin, after Astra reported on the situation, commanders threatened him in an attempt to take all publications down. He was held in the basement prison until July 18, and then transferred to a military training ground in the village of Belovodsk in the Luhansk region. There, commanders allegedly attempted to declare him AWOL, intending to send him back to the frontline and execute him. However, due to a positive hepatitis C test result, medical personnel sent him for examination. Zainulin believes he became a liability to the commanders because he tried to protect his subordinates and fought against extortion and lawlessness. He decided not to return to his military unit and submitted a complaint to the Military Prosecutor's Office.
In Moscow, a soldier with a stomach ulcer who had been trying to resign from the army was forcibly taken to Rostov to be sent to the frontline. According to former municipal deputy Yevgeny Stupin, 27-year-old Umidbek Palvanov, who serves in the 103rd Motorized Rifle Regiment, was kidnapped in the capital. The man wanted to resign from the army for health reasons. Military police officers and unidentified people without insignia grabbed Palvanov on the street in front of his sister, forced him into a car and took him to the police station. Umidbek was not allowed to see a lawyer. Palvanov was then taken to the Rostov region and moved to the barracks of a military unit. According to Stupin, Udimbek had been diagnosed with a stomach ulcer, he was undergoing examination and planned to resign from the army for health reasons, and now immediately after being delivered to the frontline he may be transferred to an assault regiment.
Mobilized soldier from Russia's constituent Republic of Sakha (Yakutia) Andrey Krivitsky, who did not sign a contract and had not served before being mobilized to the "DPR People's Militia" in 2022, is said to be in danger. After he and his lawyer went to court demanding that he be returned from the frontline and not be involved in combat operations, the command first tried to persuade him to sign a contract, and then threatened to kill him. The assistant commander for political affairs of the unit hinted to Krivitsky about suicide, and in the early hours of July 30, two instructors arrived at a training range and started shooting at the entrance to the barracks. Krivitsky and his fellow soldier locked themselves in the building, but the assailants broke down the door, beat Andrey up, and put an assault rifle to the back of his head, threatening to kill him.
Sentences, Legal Proceedings and Incidents
In Bashkortostan [Russia's constituent republic], a war veteran has been accused of harassing and violently assaulting a local woman. According to the Ostorozhno, Novosti [Beware the News] Telegram channel, the incident occurred in the early hours of August 3, when a resident of Tuymazy was attacked while walking home. She was hospitalized and diagnosed with a concussion. The alleged assailant, identified as Sergey A., is reportedly in Tuymazy on medical leave due to a combat-related injury. Ostorozhno, Novosti also reports that he has a prior theft charge and is under investigation in a separate rape case. As of now, he has not been taken into custody.
Elena Popova, founder of the Movement of Conscientious Objectors, a human rights organization supporting those who refuse to perform military service, is facing criminal charges under Russia’s "fake news" statute. On the morning of Aug. 5, law enforcement officers searched her residence. Popova shared a video on her Telegram channel, stating: "I’m being searched. They’re chopping down my door with an axe." According to The Pervy Otdel [Department One] human rights project, the charges stem from a livestream Popova posted on May 16, 2024, marking the Movement’s anniversary. The video appeared on her VKontakte social network page. Popova stepped down from her role in July 2025, citing "moral fatigue." Following the search, she was placed in pre-trial detention.
A 14-year-old who set fire to a defunct police station at the direction of scammers was placed under house arrest.
In the Tula region, Investigative Committee officers have detained two 17-year-old teenagers on suspicion of setting fire to a relay cabinet. The court placed them in a pre-trial detention center on charges of sabotage. According to investigators, on July 24, 2025, the teenagers allegedly set fire to railway equipment near the Aleksin station under the instructions of unknown persons "connected to Ukrainian intelligence services."
In the Bryansk region, a man has been detained on suspicion of preparing an assassination attempt on the general director of a defense enterprise in Belgorod. A criminal case on treason was initiated against him. According to law enforcement officers, the Russian citizen contacted "a representative of a pro-Ukrainian terrorist organization banned in Russia" via Telegram, and then traveled to the Bryansk region to retrieve firearms and explosives dropped by a drone. He was detained at that moment. A fragment of the interrogation indicates that the detainee was part of the Russian "North" military group in the Kharkiv region in 2024 and allegedly "transmitted to a Ukrainian handler information about the temporary duty station of Russian army servicemen and equipment," and also coordinated strikes by the Armed Forces of Ukraine on the locations of Russian Armed Forces units.
The District Military Court in the city of Yekaterinburg is hearing the case of Radik Khalikov, a 55-year-old resident of Russia’s constituent Republic of Tatarstan, on charges of attempted treason, participation in a terrorist organization, and the possession and attempted trafficking of narcotics. According to investigators, in the fall of 2023, Khalikov contacted representatives of the Freedom of Russia Legion via Telegram and attempted to fly from Kazan to Armenia to join the war on the side of Ukraine. On Oct. 29, 2023, Khalikov was detained at the international terminal of the Kazan airport. There is no confirmation that he actually communicated with representatives of the unit. Materials presented in court revealed that the man had been under surveillance.
A court in annexed Sevastopol sentenced 42-year-old Viktoria Strilets and her 24-year-old daughter, Aleksandra, to 12 years in a penal colony each on charges of treason. The investigation alleges that Aleksandra agreed to confidential cooperation with Ukrainian representatives for a reward and involved her mother. In September 2023, Aleksandra allegedly transferred photographs of Russian military sites, taken by her mother, to a Ukrainian military intelligence-controlled channel on a messaging app. Both women were detained by the FSB; the exact date of their detention has not been disclosed.
Children and Militarization
In 2025, nearly 3,000 participants of the "special military operation" and their children were admitted to 18 leading Russian universities under a preferential quota—a 58% increase from the previous year. 83% of these applicants were enrolled without exams or had scores that would not have allowed them to be admitted without the quota. In total, the Ministry of Education and Science has reserved 50,000 state-funded places for categories related to the "special military operation." According to a 2023 Putin decree, at least 10% of state-funded places in every university specialty are reserved for participants in the war or their children.
Under the Everything Best for Children program, Russian schools have purchased mock-ups of weapons and military equipment totaling nearly 500 million rubles [$6.27 million] in the past six months. The highest expenditures were reported in the Amur, Saratov, Orenburg regions, and Russia’s constituent Republic of Dagestan.
In the Leningrad region, a drone laboratory will be opened to teach young people how to assemble drones.
Longreads
The Vyorstka media outlet reported on the 522nd center for receiving, processing, and sending the bodies of Russian soldiers who were killed in the war with Ukraine in Rostov-on-Don. Bodies are transported in regular trucks, 40 at a time. According to a morgue employee, among the killed are often conscripts, and identification errors are possible during the process.
The CHITA.RU media outlet reports about residents of the Zabaykalsky region convicted of murders and rapes who went to war from correctional facilities.
The Sever.Realii [part of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty] online media outlet calculated that since the beginning of 2025, at least 42 teenagers in Russia have been detained on charges of sabotage, terrorism, and treason—most often for attempting to set fire to relay cabinets and draft offices following instructions from messengers. Most cases are handled behind closed doors, with teenagers facing real sentences ranging from four to nine years. The publication also discusses how this fits into the authorities' overall repressive logic.